Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light guide plate, and a backlight unit and an electronic device including the same.
Discussion of the Related Art
Generally, liquid crystal display (LCD) devices are being widely used as display screens of various products such as televisions (TVs), notebook computers, monitors, etc., in addition to mobile devices such as mobile communication terminals, electronic notebooks, e-books, portable multimedia players (PMPs), navigation devices, ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPCs), mobile phones, smartphones, tablet personal computers (PCs), watch phones, etc.
Recently, mobile devices have a partial display function for quickly executing a message function, a call function, a music reproduction function, a watch function, and a camera function by using a fast execution screen which is locally displayed on a display screen of a liquid crystal display panel.
FIG. 1 is a diagram for describing a partial display function performed by a related art mobile device.
Referring to FIG. 1, the related art mobile device includes a liquid crystal display panel 10, which displays a fast execution screen 12, and a backlight unit 20 that irradiates light 25 onto a rear surface of the liquid crystal display panel 10.
The liquid crystal display panel 10 includes a plurality of pixels and displays the fast execution screen 12 on a predetermined local area by turning on a thin film transistor (TFT) which is provided in each of the plurality of pixels.
The backlight unit 20 includes a light guide plate 21, which is disposed on the rear surface of the liquid crystal display panel 10, and a light source unit 23 including a plurality of light emitting diodes (LEDs) that irradiate light onto one side surface of the light guide plate 21.
In the related art mobile device, when the partial display function is performed, the backlight unit 20 drives all of the plurality of LEDs to irradiate the light 25 onto the whole rear surface of the liquid crystal display panel 10, and the liquid crystal display panel 10 locally displays the fast execution screen 12 through partial driving. That is, the related art mobile device displays the fast execution screen 12 by driving all the LEDs of the backlight unit 20 and partially driving the liquid crystal display panel 10.
In the related art mobile device, when displaying the fast execution screen 12, power may be unnecessarily consumed by LEDs irrelevant to the fast execution screen 12. For this reason, since the related art mobile device may not control a partial luminance of the backlight unit, all the LEDs of the backlight unit are driven when executing a partial display function, causing an increase in power consumption.